


Strangers When We Meet

by 1lostone



Series: Strangers When We Meet [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Awesome Nerdery, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Season/Series 03 Fix-It, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, The kids being awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 15:55:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19794157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: In which some questions are answered....





	Strangers When We Meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jlm121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlm121/gifts).



> Song title from a David Bowie song, but this isn't a song fic.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, but this idea jumped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. I’ve got a Sterek, a TWD pornicopia, and a multifandom dumpster fire that I’m writing right now, so of course my brain is like, “time to start a totally new fic in a fandom you’ve never written in! Yay!” The idea for this is completely dependent on the fact that David Harbour is contracted for a fourth season of Stranger Things. (If that’s not true, then I don’t want to know.) Pairing endgames are Joyce/Hopper and Steve/Nancy/Jonathan, but I’m not sure. Story is told in three alternating points of view: Hopper, El and the Byers’, and Hawkins. I also don’t speak Russian, so my apologies. 
> 
> (also, AO3 tells me that this is my 114th fic. Whoo!)

***

Hopper had known he was fucked. 

Later, he would wish that he hadn’t frozen, hadn’t taken that moment of staring at Joyce’s face in the control booth. He would wish that he’d moved just a little faster, or hell, had moved with a little more than a blind wish and a prayer.

But it had just been a split second. One heartbeat, Joyce’s eyes, wet and terrified for what she was about to do. Another, and he knew he tried a smile, he thought he nodded for her to do it, to shut that shit down. Hop had another moment, seconds, when he saw Joyce shut her eyes and turn away, as though she couldn’t bear the thought of what she was about to do. 

But that was the funny thing about Joyce Byers. She was stronger than anyone he knew. She had come down here, knowing that it could go bad. She had doggedly refused to give up when she knew something was wrong with those stupid fucking magnets. And now? To keep the people she loved safe, she’d shut down that machine. . . no matter what. 

Much, much later, after the unending darkness, the cold, the beatings, the starvation,and the misery, Hopper would wish that he hadn’t done anything. That he had just allowed himself to blip out of existence, like Murray had said had happened to the others when they’d first built the thing. 

But he hadn’t. 

Joyce turned away, and in that brief second Hopper had caught a glimpse of a  _ chance _ . The little room off the stairwell was close,but Joyce’s fingers were on the key and he didn’t think he could make the short distance to the room. 

Behind him, mere feet away, was the gaping wound between here and the Upside Down. Hopper turned and dove, not even thinking. Whatever Murray had done had kept the beam from slicing him in half like a Thanksgiving turkey. The shocking, numbing  _ cold _ told him more than anything else that he had done it. He’d managed to save himself. 

Later, Hopper would do his very best not to think about it. He didn’t like to remember how the cold almost seemed to pull the very life from him. When he’d been here before, he’d had a suit, and a weapon, and Joyce beside him. 

Now though? Now Hopper was alone. 

He wandered and explored for days, hours, decades, eons. Hopper was never hungry, or thirsty. He never had to take a shit, or scratch his nose. There was terror, and danger, and Hopper scuttled away from the evil as best he could, vaguely ashamed at his cowardice, but more afraid of those things finding him than anything. 

The first time he felt the shift, Hopper missed it. It wasn’t more than a feeling of possibility; of warmth, before it dissipated. The second time, Hopper actually got close enough to feel the heat, to smell the difference in air, to glimpse the world outside of the Upside Down. The third time, when the small opening appeared, he forced his way through, uncaring of what may follow him, desperate to get the fuck  _ out. _

He was blinded by the light after so long in darkness. 

He heard them shout ( _ Stoy! Podozhdite! My strelyayem! Stop! _ ) but couldn’t make sense of the syllables they shouted. Shaking, Terrified, Hopper squinted through streaming eyes to see several men in uniform holding assault weapons on him. He fell to his knees, but when he heard the roaring sound of something behind him, Hopper scrambled out of the way, his instincts pushing him to go, to hide, to hurry. 

His own dumb luck had him huddled against a door. When it opened, Hopper tried to crawl through. When it shut on the sound of gunfire and the screams of men, Hopper curled into himself, trying to make a small a target as possible. 

There were more shouts, more words he didn’t know, and a droning siren that made Hopper remember a time when he wasn’t in the dark. The slam of the gun against his head was a blessing, and Hop sank into blissful unconsciousness with a sigh of relief. 

  
  
  
  
**TBC!**  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This has been marked as complete, with the plan to continue this story in subsequent one shots.


End file.
